I’ve talked about suffering before but lately I’ve been reading up on Siddhartha Gautama’s teachings. That’s the Buddha, not to be confused with a buddha. His lessons can probably be summarized as suffering exists, and suffering can be overcome. Today I wont be waxing on about him though, that will come in a few weeks, I’m here to talk about physical suffering. More specifically suffering for 14 hours on a bicycle.
Maybe it’s not fair to say I was suffering for 14 hours because I certainly started off feeling elated, undercut with just a touch of dread maybe. Certainly, even in the midst of the worst pain I felt spurts of joy as well. Delirious, pure joy such as the one described by the buddha as the second jhāna of Right Concentration:
Furthermore, with the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, he enters and remains in the second jhana: rapture and pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought and evaluation — internal assurance. He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of composure. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born of composure.
On these long rides it’s hard not to consider them a form of meditation, yet I’ve never really experienced the banishing of thought on my bike until this day.
I recently rewatched JAWS for no other reason than it’s a great movie to watch in the summer if you’re not planning on going swimming in the ocean. Imagine my surprise when I proceeded to watch Jordan Peele’s NOPE and noticed the former’s DNA all over it. The first part of JAWS is the slow realization of the threat. Shark attacks keep happening and the only person who seems to care is Chief Brody. The mayor cares, but only insofar as it doesn’t affect the tourism money that pours into the island every summer. The central conflict in the first two acts is thus setup as a battle between the dismissal of the shark as a threat which represents a primal force and Brody’s attempts to convince the town officials that the shark needs to be reckoned with. As the officials continuously downplay the shark and hamper Brody’s ability to neutralize it the body count keeps growing, as well as the boldness of the attacks. Spielberg aims to show us that we continuously take for granted our roles as alpha predators in the food chain, when humanity grows complacent nature comes to knock at our door.
In NOPE (spoilers), the film follows a similar pattern with the key difference that the monster is summoned not due to complacency and greed but to humanity’s need for spectacle. Ricky Park cannot help but be enchanted by the danger of the monster, his past is inextricably linked with close encounters of the dangerous kind. As a child he watched a chimpanzee brutally beat his co stars within an inch of their lives then seemingly faced the monkey himself only to come out unscathed. He at once grows a false confidence and a need to recreate that traumatic event over and over in his life. It ends in tragedy of course as a central theme of the film is that you can’t tame nature. Once he entices the beast, and makes eye contact its predator nature fully unfurls.
In both films there is an undercurrent of unappreciation for nature and its untamable forces. So what does this long winded preamble have to do with my bike ride? I too have taken for granted the sheer size and viciousness of the course I signed up for. I looked back at my Strava post for 2021 Tour De Big Bear and I called it one of the hardest rides I’ve ever done if not the hardest. In the subsequent year I’ve done harder rides, and perhaps this gave me a false sense that I could tackle the 100 mile course this year. Don’t get me wrong I set my sights on it almost immediately, and set up what I thought was a decent training plan to get me there. Yet at over 8000 feet of climbing over 100 miles, at an altitude of 6000 – 8000 feet it is a formidable monster.
I knew in the weeks leading up to the ride that I wasn’t ready, my speed and performance on some of the most recent rides I did was just not enough to meet the 10 hour cutoff time at TDBB. Perhaps for this reason I started to tell my friends who were also going that I was not going to make it, and to please not wait for me or anything like that. I was sowing the seeds doubt early on. This was, correctly, assumed to be pessimism on my part. Yet I knew in my heart it was the truth. I had taken for granted the rigor and discipline training for this ride required. I found it very hard to stick to my interval workouts, especially after the disappointing results of my second FTP test. It was demoralizing to be doing these interval rides that were not enjoyable for me and seeing no payoff. So my training after became limp and half hearted. Throw in a couple vacations, small injuries, hot summer days and the writing was on the wall.
Philosophically speaking, setting the expectation that I was not going to finish was an effort to reduce the vulnerability I faced by failing. For me optimistically tackling a challenge and not succeeding is magnitudes of order more emotionally damaging than meeting my goal of failing. Yet the question remains whether I sabotaged myself by resetting my desired outcome lower. The flip side to that is that surpassing one’s goals also is a reward in its own right. A sliver of me held on to the hope that I would somehow disprove myself and complete the course, even if took me all 10 hours to do it.
I started off on the wrong foot already by giving my legs perhaps too much of a workout the day before the ride in what was supposed to be a low effort warmup spin around the lake I was trying to play catchup with my powerhouse cycling friends. I went to sleep with very tired legs and I doubt I had fully recovered in the 5 hours it took for me to wake up and get ready for the big ride. However I still started off feeling great, there’s always adrenaline coursing through you when these big events happen, plus being able to start with my friends sets a good mood. I think my ride to first aid station was pretty good, I wasn’t breaking any records or anything but I was on pace to finish if I kept it up. My friends of course dropped me within the first 5 miles but it was as expected. I saw them once more as they were ascending the second climb of the day from the first aid station and I was descending towards it, a pattern which would repeat itself 5 hours later. I made the same mistake as last year and had to pee so badly at the bottom of that hill that I waited in line with the rest of the cyclists who were trying to use the portable toilet, time wasted. On my way back up the hill and through the north side of the lake I was starting to feel the familiar signs of exhaustion: cramping legs, sore back, sore saddle. Yet these hit me a lot earlier than I am used to, no doubt the altitude was having its effect on me, my heart rate is of course elevated as there’s less oxygen to go around up there. After a couple salt tablets the feeling of cramps subsided and I stopped in for three pieces of bacon at the second rest stop because I couldn’t just ignore such a delicious treat.
Half the reason I kept going tbh
On my way to the third rest stop I knew that my faculties were significantly diminished, it was a relatively flat part of the course yet I was finding myself struggling to pedal and to stay abreast of pains accumulating in my body. At the third rest stop I indulged in TDBB’s famous rib stop and had a chat with Mike Manson who like me, valued just finishing a course over finishing it as fast as possible. I left asap as I didn’t want to spend too much time at the rest stops, still holding out hope that I might finish. Following this was the first big climb of the day, a 7 mile spin up to the top of Onyx peak. My goal here was to surpass last year’s effort since this was the last part of the 70 mile course. The good news is I did PR that climb but not by much, though on the whole I felt much better than last year where I remember struggling to make it even a mile, maybe it’s all a mental game in the end. Once I crested Onyx I stopped at aid station 4 where they advised me that if I took on the rest of the course at that time I might not make it. I definitely considered turning back and completing the 70 mile course instead. It didn’t help that I had to take an unscheduled break to deal with some uncomfortable stomach issues which I blamed on the incredible amounts of fiber Daniel had made us eat the night previous.
As I was deciding what to do I saw Mike again, who told me immediately that he was going to continue the course. I rallied with him and decided the course officials would have to come get me if worse came to worse. We began the descent to Jenks lake which was almost 9 miles. Partially through this descent is where I would spot my friends for the last time. Daniel in particular looked like he was suffering up the climb, a stark contrast to cool and consistent climbing he was doing earlier in the morning. The descent was electrifying as we reached speeds of 35 miles per hour down the mountainside. Yet my elation slowly blossomed into a dread as the road just kept going down and down. I realized painfully that the bill would come due as I had to make my way back up this mountain if I was to complete the course, which would be the hardest part of the whole thing. Here is where I think my spirit finally broke, I made eye contact with the beast and the monster revealed itself to me. I slowly began to accept and rationalize my demise. At the bottom of the descent there was yet more climbing to do around Jenks lake before I even got back to ascending up to Onyx peak. At the Jenks lake aid station me and Mike assumed we were the last people on the course, actually there were 3 cyclists behind us at that time to my estimation, but still not exactly on the right side of that bell curve.
I let Mike drop me here as I was suffering pretty badly. My need to stop kept growing more and more frequent as I was having trouble putting in a consistent effort up the side of the lake. Eventually I was passed by another rider and then a second who informed that I was not the last person on the course there was one yet behind me. I struggled my way all the way back to the bottom of that 8 mile climb and I took a rest on the side of the road. It was the last real challenge ahead of me before the finish line. It was here that the last rider on the course caught up to me. It was a sight you hate to see, a cyclist walking next to his bicycle defeated by the course. We exchanged “are you okay?”s and he told me his legs were destroyed as this was only his 4th month of cycling ever. I congratulated him on his ridiculous gumption as he slowly passed me on the side of the road where I sat eating my banana. There it was, at long last I was the last person on the 100 mile course.
By this point three SAG(support and gear) vehicles had approached me asking if I needed a lift out of here as they warned me that the remaining two aid stations head of me would be closing soon and might not be there by they time I rolled by. I turned them down saying I still had plenty of supplies and they moved on but not without recording my bib number in order to keep track of me. I watched as the cyclist walking his bicycle up the hill got into a SAG and took a ride back to the finish line. As I made my way back up the side of Onyx I was struggling, and was pretty sure I’d miss the remaining aid stations. My mind was made up to finish past the course cutoff at this point. The SAGs had other ideas though.
Two of them pulled up beside me and I was going so slow at this point that they were able to get off their cars and walk beside me as they tried to convince me to take a ride back since everything ahead of me was closing down and I would be unsupported with food or water in the heat and they further confirmed what I suspected, that I was in dead last. I told them no but eventually my exhaustion and their promises of being without water reminded me of my terrible experience trying to climb crystal lake three weeks previous. I eventually told them that I would go only if I could get dropped off at the top of onyx, skipping only about 6 miles of climbing and 1800 feet of elevation, they agreed and I took the ride.
Driving up the side of onyx in an air conditioned cabin I felt like an absolute fucking scab. I had broken the sacred pact between the cyclist and the road: That it didn’t matter how long it took as long as you finished. Passing all the cyclists still struggling their way up the mountain felt like I had betrayed them especially as they each also refused to take the ride. Eventually I passed Mike who was making much better time than I was. I was reminded of the shark cage fugue from JAWS, traveling in my own cage of sorts up the beast that I could not conquer, and like Matt Hooper I too was out of spit.
I was joined by two Japanese women who were also taking the ride to the top of onyx as they had underestimated the difficulty of the route, they were only skipping about three miles however. Once we got off at the peak they happily hurried back down the descent to the other side where the finish line awaited. I paused for a couple minutes just trying to wrestle with my perceived failure. True I skipped most of the hardest part of the course, yet the entire thing was a challenge to me. I had done much more than last year and in my mind I could have finished the 100 miles given enough time and water. Of course that’s true of any ride even if you crawl along at 4mph and stop a lot eventually you’ll be done. I decided to shake off the emotions for now deciding that taking the ride was smart from a well being point of view as I didn’t want to bonk and get stuck on the mountain without an exit strategy.
I proceeded to descend down the side of Onyx that I climbed 4 hours earlier, the usual elation of barreling down a mountain hampered by the feeling that I hadn’t “earned” it. There was about 16 miles of course left which is the second Strava route posted above. Half of it was easy and the second half involved about 700 feet of climbing back to the finish which was not the quick and painless effort I was hoping for yet much better than an 8 mile struggle of a mountain. As I was nearing the finish line Mike caught up to me. I thought he had blown me out of the water making it so far after I had taken the SAG ride, yet he informed that he too got taken by the SAG to the top of Onyx. I guess they were sweeping the course of stragglers. I felt better about my effort and Daniel and Will were waiting for us around the corner to the finish line to cheer us on which I greatly appreciated since they had been done almost 4 hours previous. At 9 hours and 30 minutes I finished a total of about 93 miles and 6300 feet of climbing which was still a climbing PR for me. I took it as a victory and yet I couldn’t help but wonder how much more I could have done in the extra 30 minutes before the cutoff. Will I be doomed to repeat my mistakes next year? Or will I saddle up like the holy trinity of Hooper, Brody, and Quint and blow Big Bear out of the water with extreme prejudice? Or Will I even attempt it again? It remains to be seen.
I’ve talked on here about the concept of bad faith and the need for one to be authentic to ourselves. Half that battle is knowing who we are and what we want because those things are moving targets. The dissonance between those two realms of the inner and outer is what leads to unhappiness and un-fulfillment. Yet none of us are automatons with singular wants and needs, we are tapestries of desires and we twist and fold in on ourselves in a myriad of ways. Yet to simplify this paradox we abstract these internal battles into two opposing forces. All decisions can be broken down into a series of two choices: yes or no. This is at the heart of how we think, so it is no wonder that when creating computers we have embedded them with this sacred knowledge of yes or no, 1 or 0. Two opposing forces that build into a unified self.
Sometimes I feel my two selves at war, and the battlefield is my mind and body. Yet aren’t we always in constant battle with ourselves? There is the push and pull of time in every situation. If our decisions are the fundamental exercise of our existence and we cannot remain in a state of non-existence then time is both the cause of our existence and the measure against which we exist. The existential relief that comes from having chosen lasts only as long as the next choice remains looming in the distance. Putting off that next decision is at the heart of the human condition. It is the agony of consequence that keeps us in a state of complacency, an inactive participant in our daily lives. Yet if our biological imperative is to survive, then to live is to wage battle with ourselves over and over until we perish.
Under the tongue root
a fight most dread,
and another raging
behind in the head
These are the lyrics of Duel Of The Fates (before they got loosely translated into sanskrit), it’s a snippet from Cad Goddeu (The Battle of the Trees). The lines refer to the fight amongst a tree yet it applies to us as well. The roles we embody with our words may be in opposition to the self in our minds. The act of decision can sometimes feel like a violent rejection of one role or fate over the other. The song plays during a battle as the two greatest opposing forces in the Star Wars Universe battle to lay claim to Anakin’s future. Light vs Dark, Yin vs Yang, and yet ultimately unification through balance.
Last weekend I tried to do a bike ride that I objectively failed at. Having planned it very poorly I ran out of water on a hot day and turned back having done only about half of what I set out to do. The heat was exhausting and every second I was on the bike was a decision point to continue riding or to stop. The mounting pain, onset of heat exhaustion and mechanical troubles that I was facing were forcing me to keep deciding to continue as opposed to the state I wish to be in which is passive activity, the role of cycling. Yet is willpower more like a status check that may or may not fail you depending on the severity of the decision or like a reserve that whittles away little by little as you are forced to take action over and over? To be an athlete you must be able to tolerate pain, that is the nature of strength and growth. The athlete in me told me to keep pushing forward, yet the pragmatist repeatedly questioned why I was pushing to the brink of suffering. So who is my true self? In that moment the pain, doubt, and realization built to a crescendo and I knew then I was cycling in bad faith. Eventually I chose to stop and turn around. This is a microcosm of the decision points we face in life yet it illustrates the profound effects the simplest ones can have. To wit, having invested in my identity as a cyclist I feel like I have failed myself yet undoubtedly I made the right choice that day lest I ended up on the side of the road with heat stroke. Who we are is a conjunction of the forces that shape us and it’s important that our identity and our confidence must come from different sources.
There will always be me and the shadow of me, the me I aspire to be. There will be times when they are in opposition and times when they are in agreement, they both may grow or diminish but through constant reflection and interrogation they should always remain in balance.
I blew past my previous max distance by a resounding 24 miles. The total elevation ended up coming up just under 5500′ which is about 500 merciful feet less than the route was described. Still it’s the most I’ve climbed on one of these long rides. I completed the route one hour and a half before the cutoff. Looking back on the ride itself, my previous post sounds childish (maybe it did anyways) with how strongly I managed to finish. Yet even the night before I was still in the throes of anxiety…
I rolled up to the Simi Valley Hotel I was staying at with Daniel around 5pm. I was immediately beset by concern because they had multiple “No bicycles permitted in building” signs plastered all over the entrances and windows. I wondered how this could have been such a recurring problem that it warranted such aggressive signage. I imagined Simi Valley being swarmed by flocks of cyclists at hotels but I never saw a single other one besides Daniel and the rest of the randonneurs I was heading out with. One thing bicycling has reinforced in me is that sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission, I believe they call this exercising your privilege. If you’re in a shady neighborhood you grab your bike and walk right into the store; If you’re at red light with a weight sensor and no cars for miles then you just roll on; if you feel unsafe on the shoulder of a road you just take up the whole lane instead. I gathered my nerves and walked right in with my bicycle already mentally preparing my defense: “Your website never said no bikes allowed”. The lobby was completely empty, I leaned my bike out of sight of the reception, checked in, and went to my room after the worker walked to the back room.
I was listening to Jonny Greenwood’s latest score and I am ashamed to admit that often times I am moved by the music, having never watched the film. I definitely intend to watch Spencer, but my opportunity to see it in theatres was lost amongst the shuffle of life. I’ll report back here once I do but until then this piece highlights something I want to call a beautiful dread. I lack the knowledge of musical theory to really describe it but there is the challenge and response at the beginning, followed by an unceasingly ascending fugue that is anchored by some devastatingly minor chords. He is channeling J.S. Bach at his most contrapuntal here, which in the film is no doubt a reference to the baroque excess of the royal lineage, but for the person sitting here listening to it without knowledge of its origins it fills me with a promise of greatness and an anxiety of failure. The fugue is especially suited for this because it’s layering of melodic lines represents the many pressures, demands, and thoughts circling through my head at these times of fear. Yet undeniably, on the whole, it’s a beautiful, fragile piece and although there is an undercurrent of anguish it strives upward and onward like many dancers who do not notice they are inching towards a great precipice as they are too preoccupied with their partners.
But the song alone is not responsible for my current malaise. This Sunday I’m doing a brevet, a 200km bicycle ride, I’m afraid of: 124 miles and 6000 feet of elevation which for me is no walk in the park. If it goes well it will be both the highest elevation and the furthest distance I have ever covered in a single ride. I have 13 hours on this earth to finish, which may very well be a lot until you realize I practice the way of the tortoise when it comes to these large efforts. Yet why am I afraid? Not finishing a bicycle ride will hardly be the worst thing to ever happen to me. It is my soul that would suffer, the bitter defeat of not achieving my goal, however small, is a blow to my ego and confidence. I have employed every trick in the book to rationalize away this fear:
“I’ve done 100 miles what’s 24 more?”
“I’ve done 5400 feet of climbing in 70 miles, 6000 spread out over 124 miles that’s easy.”
“My friend Daniel is doing 370 miles that day, he is surely better than me but even I can keep up on his last 124 miles can’t I?”
“Worse comes to worse I can just stop and quit, it’s my choice. I can get picked up.”
“If I feel like I wont finish I can cut the route short, I am the master of my own destiny after all.”
“Even if I don’t finish maybe I will still have gone further than ever before.”
This is my personal fugue, playing endlessly in my head leading up to the ride this Sunday. There is the anticipation of pain, but also the sweet dreams of victory. Will I come back here next week hence and regale you with the tale of my adventure, mission accomplished? Or will I publish a post about Icarus and how he journeyed too close to the sun? This is what Kierkegaard refers to as Anxiety, the dizziness of freedom, for after all as much as I like to hand off the responsibility of being on this ride (“I paid $20, I have to do it now”) it is my choice alone to put myself through this gauntlet, a test of my mental and physical fortitude. Taking that responsibility is unmasking my true being and rejecting the many excuses and opportunities to exit it that my inauthentic self whispers to me is part of the challenge. So there we have it: challenge, response, and now the perpetual silent second before the journey.
I watched Michael Mann’s Thief yesterday about, you guessed it, a thief. He’s the best thief, but he’s trying to get out of the business. You see this archetypal film a lot, “The best at x because it’s all they’ve ever known, but the consequences are catching up”. Compare this to another archetypal plot: “They’re the best at x but no one will give them a chance to prove themselves”. Of course there is the Hong Kong Kung Fu twist on this: “They have the potential to be the best at x but they need a master to help them achieve it”. It’s all influenced by the other now but this was a highlight between traditional Western and Eastern thought. Look at the cowboy films from the 60s, these badass men just drifted in from who knows where and they were masters of their art, fully formed from the womb no doubt. In the West we want to believe we can become masters using only extreme American gumption, and the tools at our disposal. In the East one can only achieve their true potential by acknowledging and listening to the wisdom of their elders. Like I mentioned though the two schools have mixed, at least in film (Think Kill Bill). James Caan’s thief did have a master in the form of a character played by Willie Nelson.
So what is it about these people that are the best at what they do that makes for a fascinating watch? All of our human existence is a struggle to learn and I think sometimes we want to fantasize about what happens when we get to the end. To use a concrete example, I’ve been cycling two years now and yeah I’d want to watch a film about the best cyclist (sit down Lance Fakestrong), what does that look like? What kind of super human feats could they accomplish? I know that objectively there is an actual best cyclist out there in the world since that’s how sports are structured, but give me a mythical, fictionalized one that I can aspire to, that will never break, disappoint or otherwise let me down. I think we all inhabit various roles every day of our lives, and there is satisfaction that comes from the being the best at it. Yet none of these roles are truly us.
To use an example from Jean-Paul Sartre that I just read about, say I am a waiter and I’m the best waiter gliding around a restaurant, taking orders, never forgetting a single item, never dropping a plate or delivering food late and charming all the patrons meanwhile. The totality of my being and energy in this moment is devoted to being an absolute badass waiter. Sartre describes this as living in bad faith with yourself because by inhabiting a role so perfectly you are undoubtedly pushing down the part of your consciousness that makes you a real person. So why do we do it? It feels good to perform. If we imagine an action as a series of miniature goals and targets then in a way every person on earth is an athlete and their sport is living. For example, as a waiter I know I have to take the orders of customers in the order that they arrived: that’s goal #1. I need to jot down or memorize the order correctly including customizations: goal #2. I need to deliver these orders to the kitchen on time: goal #3. These micro goals go on and on and achieving each one will produce some measure of satisfaction.
Another reason why we like to exist in bad faith is because it can be a form of meditation where we stop thinking of the pressures and anxieties that are outside of our control. It’s essentially a relief to inhabit some perfect (or perfect adjacent) version of ourselves that does not have to deal with pressures of true existence if even for a short while. It’s not a cure for our existentialist ailment of course, as our true authentic selves need to reassert eventually. Existing in a role for too long provides diminishing returns and if we lose sight of the compass that is our real being then we grow stale in the roles we have chosen for ourselves. This is the great wheel of life that capitalism (for one) has sunk its teeth into. Our jobs are defined by roles, and we are provided targets and goals for these roles. Corporations know that positive feedback titillates us, and providing a great amount of work for us to accomplish will keep us working by sheer force of existential dread. Yet even if we like our jobs, we are existing in bad faith because we ignore the multi-facetedness of our life. What’s more, existing in a role takes away our ability to choose, technically we are “deciding” to go to work every day, but ask yourself if you really are or if you feel forced to via the pressures surrounding you and then you’ll know that you’re living in bad faith. “But that’s what the weekend is for” I hear you corporate shills saying. Our lives should be lived in accomplishments, feats, decisions, and changes not in two days out of the week.
Yesterday I rode 100 miles on my bicycle, a concept that is still kind of mind blowing to me as even the thought of driving 100 miles fills me with exhaustion. From my Palm Springs Century post it’s clear though that 100 miles isn’t some monolithic suffer fest like you would imagine cycling 100 miles at a gym is. It really becomes a series of adventures, compromises, and improvisations. I think it’s that excitement that keeps the ride feeling fresh and vital the whole way through. This time I wont exhaustively cover the music through the ride because even though I was listening to some, since I was cycling through Los Angeles my mind was distracted by the sights of the city, and by trying to stay alive despite some drivers’ insistence otherwise.
Churro maple glaze
The century ride started as a great romp up the all the strand beaches and since I was riding mostly solo I could stop and take in views but more importantly stop for donuts. I had a deadline of 11 am to get to the arts district so I cut across Santa Monica, down the exposition bike path which runs parallel to the expo line, and finally down Venice boulevard straight into downtown. Just barely made it on time since I can’t play fast and loose with the traffic lights while riding alone, the ones in downtown especially took foooorever. Made it to Detroit Vesey’s (an awesome new cycling cafe at the arts district) just barely in time for the Heavy Pedal group ride that was rolling out.
They had posted the route in the weeks previous and it was going to be a ride up Elysian Park as an appetizer climb before hitting Griffith Park and climbing up to the observatory and back to the cafe for a raffle. What I didn’t know was that they had made the decision to do the route in reverse and hit Griffith first and I didn’t realize it until about 20 minutes in. Thankfully I made the start of the ride or I would have been severely lost, but Daniel was trying to catch up with us and I voice texted him the change in route lest he be lost forever too. He eventually caught with us up the climb to Griffith which I was impressed by because I would have given up and gone back. The group ride wasn’t slow either, I was struggling to keep up on the flats and once we hit the observatory climb I abandoned all hope of staying with the group. I went at a snail’s pace, I think the previous 60 miles, the heat, and the extra effort I had just made brought my energy levels way down.
Eventually Daniel who had long since caught and passed me told me that the group was waiting, and I did put in some extra effort because I didn’t want to be THAT guy who held everyone up even though I totally did anyways. I was the last person to get to the top and the group rolled out to take a photo in front of the Hollywood sign. Since it was hot and the group (me) was lagging it they decided to just ride straight back to the cafe which was a blessing since I wasn’t looking forward to the second climb.
Back at the restaurant we hade some delicious latkes, coffees, cookies, and I even had a mocktail that scratched that itch for a refreshing mid-ride drink. I ended up winning two prize bags in the raffle easily worth over $150 and I only bought $40 worth of tickets so it was money well spent. Finally it was time to head home for the last 24 miles of my century.
I took it real easy on the LA river path going back to Long Beach since the pains of a century had begun to set in: saddle soreness, back pain, toe pain (this one is the bottleneck for me right now, can get painful enough that I have to stop and take off the shoes for a bit sometimes). I realized as I got closer to home that I was going to fall 2 miles short of 100 since I didn’t do the climb up Elysian. Part of me didn’t care and wanted it to be over, the other part of me wanted to finish what I fucking started. The latter me won and I flew past the exit to my home and down to the beach path for some bonus miles. What I totally forgot was that the shoreline area had been inundated by tourists going to the Grand Prix, and an entire swath of the path was closed to foot and bicycle traffic. I got to a chain link fence and was told I needed to go back the way I came. Instead of going all the way back up to river path to the previous exit I rode up the wrong way on the Queens Way Bridge then flipped a U turn back into downtown and finally, mercifully back home.
I had a tight timeline since I was trying to make a concert at 7pm. Except as I found out when I got there the concert was actually at 8 pm. So I went to get a coffee and wait. I was watching Big Band of Brothers, a big band tribute to the Allman Brothers Band which sounds crazy but inevitably makes perfect sense. I sat in the theatre and watched this 13 piece band rip through some ABB classics with saxophone, trumpet, and trombone solos standing in for Dickey Betts and Duane Allman. The 100 miles still felt fresh and my legs were feeling a dull throbbing pain, I should have been home resting, but I absolutely wanted to see this band. This milieu I was in had me reflecting on the nature of Jazz. I was an Allman Brothers fan long before I was a jazz fan but now it seems inevitable that I would come around to it. The Allman Brothers band live was an amazing experience, the songs are never played the same way. You have all these musicians on stage who play off each other, off the energy in the room that night, or just trying something new that day. This southern classic rock jam band is really just a jazz band. I read a description of a 30 minute version of Whipping Post once where the band had shifted past the first couple verse and choruses and into a primordial ooze of instrumentation, a space where the band was still playing but where direction the song could go in was infinite, it was the nameless miasma before the universe is created. Then suddenly there’s a big bang and the song takes real shape again with every musician suddenly knowing exactly what their role in this new world is. That’s fucking jazz! So it’s inevitable that I would one day grow to love it, and also inevitable the Allman Brothers would be transcribed so well into it.
This form of improvisation is what sets this genre apart from every other music on the planet, what’s more it’s uniquely American. To me jazz shows are electric, energetic, and always unique. Something which unfortunately is not true for all the concerts I go to, thinking of Slayer and Megadeth who play through their songs with precision and clockwork just as they are on the albums, but it’s okay I love them for other reasons I’m sure I’ll get to on here some day.
This interplay between conflict, resolution, solos, improvisation, payoff: it was just like my ride that day. This dance between obstacles, setbacks, shortcuts, serendipitous rewards: that’s fucking Jazz! It’s alive and ever changing, exciting and new every time, no matter how many miles I ride.
Inspired by my triathlete friend Daniel’s Blog where he recounts his big events I’ve decided to write down significant rides on my own though not always through an athletic looking glass. The germination of this particular post stems from a conversation we had the night before the Tour De Palm Springs between Daniel, our friend Sergio (who we recently viciously kidnapped into the world of cycling) and I. The question of what we actually do for multiple hours on a bicycle on these 100 mile rides came up. Obviously we pedal, yes, but our minds are left trapped on this one way train for hours on end. If you stick with a group or are of a friendly disposition then conversations are easy enough to have and those are great to pass the time but if you have a hard time keeping up with groups…let’s say…particularly on climbs or long but gradual inclines like me or if you just prefer riding alone then what do you do?
Daniel and Sergio both agreed that listening to audio books and podcasts is the way to go. I agreed, that’s definitely a great way to live out your masochist fantasies on a bike. Okay I’m being sarcastic, they enjoy this and maybe consider it even more of a “productive” endeavor, a synergy between mind and body where the body is working and the mind is learning. I understand the impulse, it’s the same feeling I get when I used to drive across LA for work, may as well knock out a book or learn some new shit while stuck in traffic, right? May as well learn the secret art of the law of attraction while pedaling for 6 hours straight too then yeah? Hell nah.
I listen to music, it’s a ride enhancer for me. It scoops me out of the lows and it makes the highs higher. My bicycle ride becomes art, a film in my head. Oftentimes the combination of my struggle, the vistas, and the music combine together to form some sort of alchemical concoction greater than the sum of its parts and later on that’s what I remember the most, not the suffering but the grandiose canvas of emotions I felt. I tried to jot down some quick notes to prompt my recounting of the ride so get ready for a deep dive into the intersection between music scores, soundtracks and cycling that you never asked for.
